This month, my orthodontist came out with some other options she wanted to discuss, even though I am only a month or two away from a Lefort 1.
From what I understood, she recently was at a professional event where she heard Dr. William R. Proffit speak. (Proffit being one of the leading authorities on orthodontics/author of the most widely used text in orthodontics)
While orthodontists use bone anchored miniplates to pull the upper jaw forward successfully on growing patients with class 3 occlusions, the treatment is not used on adults. The present standard of care for non-growing patients is surgery, despite the fact that many in the field have long suspected adults could respond as well.
Proffit has come out and said he is treating adult patients in the same manner he would growing patients, has been able to fix the class 3 occlusions this way, and had better results where Lefort 1 is limited (being that a Lefort 1 cannot solve the mid face hypoplasia issue above the maxilla). The plates have been lifting the mid face nicely in these cases, despite the fact that the patients are non-growing.
My orthodontist said that this is huge news considering who it was coming from, and she would not have brought it up otherwise. Apparently, it is a somewhat widely held belief that this would be okay to do, but before now there was no encouragement to veer away from the standard of care. She felt that she owed it to her pre-surgical patients who could benefit from this to at least inform them that the option now exists.
It is not a study. It has been him treating five or six cases. Inserting the plates can be done in a surgical office setting. The treatment does not require the braces for stabilization (although they are needed for preparing the teeth to fit together), and the average time for treatment is about nine months. At the expense of that amount time, surgery can be avoided. It really seems too good to be true.
I will be asking her more about this option next week and will report back if anyone expresses interest here. If anybody else knows anything, PLEASE feel free to comment or correct any information here. All of this comes from this single conversation with her and scouring Google trying to find out anything more about it.
